


epilogue, part one: emily fitch

by scriptmanip



Series: Resting on Your Laurels [9]
Category: Skins (UK)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptmanip/pseuds/scriptmanip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because to be together, to stay together, to push away or pull in securely, to have a life with her or without her, has always been the result of decisions you’ve both made. It’s what you have to keep reminding yourself. </p><p>Because you once forgot, relied too heavily on the invisible pull between you, and nearly lost one another for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	epilogue, part one: emily fitch

_as told by Emily Fitch_

A girl called Naomi Campbell is about to ruin your life.

You’re a bit too preoccupied with making your new font – the subtle sloping on certain letters you’ve been practicing all summer – differentiate from Katie’s, while writing your name at the top of your blue notebook. So you don’t notice as she enters the classroom, this girl you’ve never met.

And she’ll be stiff and awkward, not yet adjusted to the growth spurt that’s given her an extra four inches over almost every other kid in your year. She’ll be tugging at the hem of her skirt, hanging just far enough above her knees for you to notice, that first day and every day after.

Most of the classroom erupts in whispers and giggles – your sister included, because _‘if you’re not with them, you’re against them, Emily’_ – at the teacher’s flustered introduction.

And it’s not as if her name isn’t rather unexpected, but you’re concentrating more on breathing, on remembering your _own_ name, since you’ve looked up to find her eyes in your direction.

It’s the beginning of the end, this moment.

And you’ll  never be quite the same. You’ve been piecing things together for quite some time – when you’ve had a few, quiet moments away from Katie, which are fucking rare but precious all the same. And you’ve started to notice things.

The way your stomach lurches when you look too long at the shadows that girls on telly create with their low-cut tops.

The way your palms perspire if you imagine your hands skimming the taut stomachs of pop stars or celebrities who are wont to expose them.

The kind of sick twisting in your gut, that’s not altogether unpleasant, when your thoughts go beyond touching breasts or naked abdomens.

But you’ve never before seen a blue like this.

Her eyes are a cloudy sky and a calm sea and an arctic glacier all swirled together with a thousand other poetic descriptions of this colour blue that you’re _certain_ exists nowhere else. And seeing it, being unable to look anywhere else for long seconds, does things to your internal organs that could be of medical concern.

Your lungs no longer contract – a breath caught somewhere that you can’t locate. Your stomach folds in on itself, like origami. And your heart thumps so loudly it’s enough to drown out every other sound. You try reminding yourself it’s only a look – that she’s only a _girl_ – once she’s looked away, casting her gaze out the window with complete disinterest. But, it’s a futile attempt, convincing yourself of these mistruths, because the damage has already been done. She’ll always be a part of you now, in some way or another. You can’t be sure of much – at your age, uncertainty in everything is to be expected. But you know it somehow. You know this one thing without pause.

A girl called Naomi Campbell has just ruined your life. In the best possible way.

**

What you’d not ever planned for is just how _much_ of Naomi you could have, you could so easily take, once she’s given into it.

And so it’s all a bit overwhelming, the initial influx of her smile, of her touch, of her kisses that are suddenly everywhere all at once, and the impact nearly bowls you over. It’s sometimes hard to catch your breath, like reaching the surface after being held underwater and not remembering how to find air. She kept you at arm’s length – and she’s got rather long arms, actually – for what felt like lifetimes. The way time moves so slowly when mired in teenaged despair.

But now.

She uses those arms to cocoon herself around you late at night and early in the morning.

She uses them to fetch your favourite mug out of the cupboard because Gina never remembers to keep it on a low shelf where you can reach.

She pulls you off the grass with those arms when you’ve smoked spliff in the sun for too long and feel a lazy kind of warmth from it as you wander from the garden back into the house.

“Christ, you’re like a damp towel,” she’ll say, laughing as you fall into her and kiss her bared shoulders.

Her arms prop you up on drunken walks home when you stupidly try to keep pace with Cook on pints or shots of tequila. And you thought you knew the meaning of safety. You thought having Katie, held under her mothering wing or cloaked in her shadow, meant security. But it’s nothing when compared to Naomi’s gentle touch, or the way she finds your eye across a room and sets your skin on fire. You don’t just feel safe with your hand clasped in hers, you feel invincible.

Of course it’s all a massive adjustment.

Joining her and Gina for tea, or feeling Naomi’s hand at the small of your back in the college corridors, or reaching up to kiss her jaw in queue at the chip shop without having her recoil. And it’s one you’re not sure will ever settle into your bones, becoming a part of you.

Being with Naomi doesn’t just change you as an individual – your _identity_ as it were – from single to taken, from straight to gay. It changes your understanding of _everything_. Your life doesn’t just turn on its head. It gets split apart at every seam and put together again, wholly unrecognisable.

**

“You’ve gone quiet,” Naomi says.

You’ve come to a park near your house – just close enough that you can spend every last minute with her without breaking your bastard curfew – and lay in the grass behind the swings.

“Have I?” your voice croaks, and it’s pitched deeper as a result of the spliff. So you clear your throat. “Sorry.”

Naomi’s laid to your right, your arms pressed together and fingers lazily twining together and coming apart over and over.

“Feeling drunk?” she asks.

Naomi actually sounds a little drunk, the way her voice gets sort of bouncy and light. And you laugh a bit at the way it’s transformed from sullen disinterest with such little effort.

“No, not really. It’s just – it’s nice, isn’t it?”

You wish you could elaborate because it doesn’t say nearly enough.

You mean to tell her it’s nice to be with her in the setting sun, alone in a park and sharing shit wine. Just as it’s nice being with her in shared company at pubs or outdoor concerts. It’s nice sitting beside her in English when you can’t even touch – not really, not more than your bare knees resting together under the table. Just to know her eye rolls for Josie’s insanity will be directed at you now, some silent conversation you can have in the middle of a crowded room.

You mean to say that it’s nothing you expected it to be. You want her to know it’s _more_ than nice, that it’s bigger than anything you’ve ever imagined. That for all the imagining, and for all the obsessing – for all the scenarios you conjured over the years of you and her [and there’ve been _loads_ ], this is more.

Simply lying here in the grass and counting the minutes until you have to leave her is so massive, you can’t quantify it or wrap your arms around it.

But you’re starting to believe that Naomi knows when you can’t turn your thoughts into actual words, because she rolls onto her side then, and adorably props her head up with her hand.

“Yeah,” she says softly, smiling down on you and resting her other hand on your stomach. It’s maybe the weed or the light buzz of the wine, but it feels like she’s answered so much of what you’ve not said out loud.

Her hair’s gotten longer, and when she’s not trying to hold it in place with grips or headbands, it falls into her eyes. Big locks of bright blonde, attempting to shade those ice-blue eyes. You reach up to move it from her face, and then return her smile when it falls back a moment later.

“How much time have we got?” she asks, reaching across your stomach and fumbling in the grass for your discarded phone.

Catching her wrist before she can light up the display, you sit up just enough to find her neck with your lips, and then her ear, and saying, “We have time.”

It’s not even true, because if there’s one thing you and she have never had, it’s time. But once you’ve said it – whispered low against her skin – it doesn’t ring completely false. There’s some sliver of honesty in there, you think.

Naomi is easily swayed these days, and quickly abandons her mission to check the time, instead falling into a slow rhythm of languid kisses. It won’t go anywhere, this lazy snog. Not now, at dusk in a public park. But then, it doesn’t need to. Not anymore. Getting Naomi naked is, of course, always the objective. Though, it’s not always the end result.

Sometimes just feeling her mouth on yours, running your fingers through her hair, and the pressure of her hand gripping at your waist, is enough to send you reeling.

It used to be about racing to the finish line, getting there quick and thoughtlessly before time ran out. Before Naomi wised up and changed her mind.

But now, you want to savour even the mundane – you want to take these moments and stretch them taut. If time isn’t on your side – and it never seems to be – then you’ll take small moments like these and patch them together. You’ll create a lifetime with her, crafted from carefully stitched moments, stolen and fleeting.

Just before the alarm on your phone goes, a precursor to the rapid-fire texts you can expect from your mum, you’re laid side-by-side again in silence. The sky is full of clouds so you can’t see the stars even though the park isn’t well-lit. The moon an ominous, hazy glow. You’ve not spoken in what feels like hours, though your lips still tingle from the recent snog so you know it’s been less than.

Perhaps Naomi’s sobered a bit now because she sort of stutters on the delivery, but your chest breaks in half all the same. “Em, I – I love you.”

You have to breath out, heavily, to keep from crying because it’s not the sort of reaction you’re meant to have when your girlfriend of nearly four months tells you she loves you. And anyway you’ve heard it before in so many different ways.

Nervously whispered in quiet mornings.

Breathed heavy and desperate into your chest during orgasm or just after.

Shouted drunkenly over gaudy drum-and-bass while pressed together in a club.

Still, it sounds unique – like each time she says it, Naomi’s considered it all again, for the first time.

And you suddenly feel like you might float away. Like right then and there your body could empty of organs and bone, become weightless and soar into the clouds, up above them where you’d find all the hidden stars.

So you reach over and grip her hand to stay in place. To stay with her.

**

London is a collection of firsts:

The first living space you’ve ever had all to yourself.

The first new city you’ve taken on without Katie. Without _anyone_.

The first girl you kiss that isn’t Naomi.

The first time you’re sat in the front of a lecture hall, leading the discussion.

The first [and last] time you try Oysters Rockefeller.

The first girl you kiss that isn’t Naomi that isn’t _also_ precipitated by loads of alcohol.

The flat isn’t even a shoebox but something altogether smaller. There isn’t even enough space for another person, almost as if you’ve ensured your solitude. On your third weekend, with very little plans other than mountains of coursework, you decide to finish unpacking. A project you more-or-less abandoned when you realised Katie wouldn’t be around to bitch and moan about a cluttered space. Still, the boxes are sort of a nuisance, even if you’d never in 100 years admit it to your smug, know-it-all sister.

Everything’s mostly sorted after a few hours except for three boxes you were too lazy to organise or even label back in Manchester – the scrawling in black marker along the top flaps something indistinctive like _‘more shit_.’ The handwriting is most definitely Katie’s, and the tiniest part of you deflates that she’s not here unpacking alongside you.

The first box consists almost entirely of old notebooks and leather-bound journals. And though they are filled with nothing but trite, immature, and _horribly_ written recollections, you could never part with them – all these accounts of your life. All these moments locked away on the page and preserved in your overly-descriptive prose. You can’t get rid of them, even if you never, _ever_ want to read them again, so you place them in a smaller box and slide them under your bedframe.

The contents of the second box – mostly first drafts of old essays and syllabi from your first year at university – go directly into the bin. No matter the opinion of your anal-retentive mother, you’re _not_ a fucking pack rat.

When the final box has been emptied, you begin stacking them all together, and it’s then that it falls out, fluttering its way to the floor.

The photo must’ve been tucked under a flap at the bottom of a box because you’d not seen it until now. It lands on the floor face down, but you don’t need to see the actual photo to know exactly what it is. It’s one you’ve forgotten because it was never hung or framed or kept tacked near your dressing table.

The handwritten note on the back, though, is a dead giveaway.

The empty boxes are forgotten immediately, dropped unceremoniously to the floor with hollow thuds, and you bend down on your haunches to pick up the photograph, reading over the text and biting your lip. You can already see the image materialising in your memory before turning it over in your hands. 

You’d been in Chelsea’s flat for a dinner party gone rogue. Too much vodka and several bad ideas later, you were all attempting to make trifle, and the tiny kitchen was an absolute bomb. The entire process was a general failure, but things really went tits up when Chelsea put Naomi in charge of cooking the lemongrass syrup. Katie had tried to oversee, as per, but eventually threw her hands in the air and gave in to the debauchery. And as it turned out, tossing the ingredients around the kitchen at each other had been just as brilliant an idea as actually _eating_ the trifle.

You fall back on your bum, leaning against the side of your bed and pull your knees up to your chest, a smile you can’t resist pulling at the corners of your mouth.

Chelsea had grabbed the camera just in time for Naomi to press both hands, drenched in warm, lemony syrup, to either side of your face. It’s taken in profile, Naomi’s cheek smeared with raspberry jam and your eyes wide, both of you broken apart in laughter that you can still hear if you close your eyes.

You take another moment with it, turning it once more to read the back before standing again and throwing it in the bin with a heavy sigh. It lands photo-side down atop all the other useless papers, it’s message in her unmistakable font staring back at you.

_Stuck with me now, aren’t you?_

**

She fully, fucking vanishes, of course. But then, Naomi’s never really gone.

Because you write her into existence time and again through university and post-grad. You find new ways to tell the story of you and her. You revisit the worst parts of your history and reimagine your favourite memories.

At the start, you discover pieces of her everywhere – even when you’ve made certain to put them away, lock them up in boxes filled with other artefacts of your past. Still, they trickle out and fall into open spaces. After time, you almost come to anticipate them, the bits and pieces from her – from the life you once made with her – that resurface every so often.

Except the pieces no longer fit within the life you now have, so that when you find them it’s often followed by a mild discomfort. Something familiar wedged into place where it doesn’t belong – like a pebble in your shoe. It makes you stop to consider other things, like how people can actually change shape. How when things fall apart, they’re often put together again, incorrectly. A different construction than before.

It’s how you see yourself now.

Because over time, you do become a whole person again, put back together from a once-shattered existence, if not someone entirely different from who you were before. Who you were with _her_.

Because you no longer feel incomplete walking about London, attending graduate courses, being without her. There’s a distinction, though.

Because you’ve erased the void, so that you no longer have a sense of some gaping hole in your body, but you still recognise the elements of the person who used to fill it.

The way she took her coffee.

The exact shade of her hair colour, and how she grew tired of the upkeep.

The sound of her laugh.

The lilt of her sarcasm.

The texture of her skin.

The tune of her favourite song.

And so you resign yourself to finding these parts of her, cropped up where they don’t belong, and you keep on with things – learning the great authors, finding independence, falling in love – despite the slight discomfort of your discoveries. And you try to forget how it is you and her once fit together.  

**

Seeing her, stood in a shop no bigger than your mum’s kitchen, is like remembering everything all at once.

You don’t just see bits and pieces then, you see the whole, fucking picture. In an instant, everything you’ve forgotten is recalled.

You see her yellow dress, on the night you threw caution to the wind and kissed her that first time.

You see her blue bra, on the day of Pandora’s pyjama party, that made your mouth go dry.

You see her pink sheets, the way she’d stomp about her room wrapped up in them, cursing for a cigarette.

You see her green jumper, the one you took to University because it reminded you of the lake.

You see her eyes, faded blue and brimming with tears, the morning you told her to go.

It’s good she’s not seen you. That the queue is long, and she’s got technology to distract her, lost somewhere in the content of her phone. Because you know it won’t matter – the time, the distance, the hundred years in-between. You know that if Naomi turns and meets your eye, she’ll see it all in an instant. She’ll hear everything you can’t actually say, the way your eyes have always been truthful without your consent. You look down to your hands, visibly shaken against the table’s edge, and take several quick breaths to calm your racing heartbeat. When you look up again, she’s at the till, and you stand from the table with a hard swallow and a nervous smile.   

**

Naomi tells you once, “We’d have found each other, you know, no matter. We’d have been at the bottom of the ocean with no lights and without sonar or even fucking oxygen, and we’d still have found each other just floating about.”

She’s drank her weight in wine and says so with an adorable slur. She’s taken you to Le Havre for a short holiday on a weekend that Lewis is with Rose. And you take up residence in a small cottage where Naomi once stayed during her travels, crating for the city’s Museum of Natural History. You drink more wine than you’ve had in ages, see very little of the actual seaport, and spend long evenings listening to everything Naomi knows about this city and the artistry it inspired.

It’s sweet of her, ascribing your being together to something like the fates. And, it might be true, in part. Perhaps some unknown force brought you together time and again, during those first few years and again, so many years later.

But then, there’s more to it than that.

Because to be together, to stay together, to push away or pull in securely, to have a life with her or without her, has always been the result of decisions you’ve both made. It’s what you have to keep reminding yourself.

Because you once forgot, relied too heavily on the invisible pull between you, and nearly lost one another for good.     

**

Your life, as it stands, is nothing you ever imagined. Your younger self, in fact, might be horrified of its construct. Everything’s come about out of relative chaos, a string of disordered events that for ages felt completely unstable.

But you have Naomi. Among the hundreds of things you got horribly wrong along the way, she is one thing you got right. Finally.

And you have Lewis. This incredible bundle of curiosity and a constant reminder that the most wonderful things can arise from the bleakest of circumstance.

Just two years in, and it already feels like a life you were always meant to have.

After the end of term, when the summer sun is most enticing, you and Lewis are left to your own mischief on the weeks he’s not with Rose. And he’s absolutely to the brim with it at three-and-a half – playfully devilish and full of life. You spend the sunny days outdoors, rediscovering forgotten nooks of London and remembering old favourites. It’s a different experience than anything you’d ever imagined, introducing a city of which you’ve grown so fond to your son – watching him discover it all for the first time with his curious feet and hands, his eager eyes.

You take him to shops and to outdoor markets. On dreary, rain-soaked days, you take him to the London library and watch his face light up when you first walk through the grand entrance. He devours books, and you sort of pity him, for never having stood a chance against a love of literature, thanks to you and Rose.

You have your days with him, a pair of thieves with no agenda, taking the city in any way you please. And then, you wait.

“Is it time yet, mum?”

You’re sat on two ends of the sofa, quietly reading on your end while Lewis draws with crayon in an old sketchbook of Naomi’s on the other.

“It’s been three minutes since you last asked, Lewis.” You don’t look up from the page, trying desperately to keep from placating his pleading face.

He huffs in frustration, looking back to his book with a green crayon clutched in one hand, and you smile, eyeing him subtly from where you’re sat. It’s not been quiet again for more than a minute when the doorbell goes and Lewis jumps up, discarding his things onto the floor. Stood on his knees, he bounces on the sofa cushion.

Lewis then flies off the sofa, shouting, “It’s time! It’s time!”

And you’re trying to reign in your laughter enough to scold him just as your phone vibrates. The text produces a different kind of smile, and it’s distracting, for a moment, from the fact that your son is racing into the corridor.

 _There’s a gorgeous woman lurking outside your flat. Do not be alarmed_ , it says.

“Hold it right there.”

Setting your book and mobile onto the coffee table, you cross the room towards him, where he’s halted with a skidding stop just inside the entryway.  Your hand rests on his head of floppy dark hair that’s neither curly nor straight but some adorable mess of the two. As sternly as you can manage, for how clearly excited he is, you say, “What have we talked about in regards to you and that front door?”

He answers, defeated, “That I’m only to answer it if you say it’s okay.”

“That’s right.”

Lewis’ smile reappears, peeks out from beneath an overgrown fringe that hangs over his left eye. “Can I?”

Placing your hands on your hips but returning his smile, you sigh. “Yes, you may.”

Lewis starts again for the door, only to stop midway, spinning to face you with a thoughtful expression. “Mum, how do you always know when it’s Nomi at the door?”

“Because I’m your mother,” you tell him simply. “And I know everything.”

He seems to think on it, nodding his head after a quick consideration, and running for the door. Lewis stops by the letterbox, nearly at eye level, and opens it with a quiet, metallic creaking.

From outside the front door, you hear her familiar greeting. “Well, hello, good sir, and how do you do?”

“Fine, sir, fanks! And how do _you_ do?” Lewis answers, practically bursting with excitement.

He’s pressed fully to the door, his eyes peering through the slim opening where you imagine Naomi to be crouched on the other side.

You’re meant to be the literary one – it’s what you’ve spent your whole life doing, entrenched in books and writings.

And yet you can’t help thinking, this exchange of Naomi and Lewis’ own creation, it should be written down and illustrated and sold at Kirkdale’s. Leant up against the wall, arms folded over your chest, you observe a routine you’ve seen countless times.

“Quite well, thank you,” Naomi says. “I’ve a parcel here for a Mr Lewis Grafton-Fitch, you see.”

“I’m Lewis Grafton-Fitch – that’s _me_!” His voice squeaks in excitement and you bite helplessly to your bottom lip.

“Hmm, well, I’ll need some verification,  I’m afraid,” Naomi tells him. “Have you got two eyes and one nose?”

“Yes, I’ve two eyes and one of those!” Lewis jumps, his left hand pressed flat to the door to keep his balance steady.

You’re not sure how she’s able to keep her voice from breaking in laughter because you’re barely holding it together. But, Naomi continues the script, ever so seriously. “And have you ten fingers and ten toes?”

Lewis jumps again and shouts, “Yes, I’ve ten fingers and ten of those!”

“Are you absolutely _certain_ you haven’t more than ten fingers, sir?”

Lewis lets the bronze flap of the letterbox slam shut, studying his hands closely. You watch him from where you’re stood, and quietly, he begins counting his fingers.

Naomi, muffled now from the flap being closed, prods him. “I can’t quite hear you, sir.”

Lewis starts again, much louder than before. “One, two, free, four …”

You silently laugh into one hand, so as not to disturb his concentration, keeping your other arm wrapped loosely around your waist.

“Ten!” he shouts, again lifting the letterbox and looking through. “I’ve got ten fingers!”

“Then I suppose this parcel is for you.”

He turns to face you then, eyes wide with excitement. “It’s for me, mum! What do you fink Nomi got me?

“I don’t know. Though I sincerely _hope_ it’s something educational as I’ve repeatedly suggested,” you say to Lewis, raising your voice just enough for it to reach the door.

Her response is quick, laden with guilt. “Shit.”

“Mum, Nomi said shit.”

“Yes, I _heard_ her, dear. Thank you.”

Returning his attentions to the letterbox, the anticipation nearly shattering him, Lewis asks, “What is it, Nomi? What is it?”

A slim parcel, wrapped in brown paper, slips through the door and Lewis snatches it with both hands. He immediately rips through the paper as the door slowly opens, and Naomi steps through into the flat.

Lewis runs to you once he’s opened it and crashes into your legs as you watch Naomi remove her shoes.

“They’re Choccie Dodgers, mum! Look!”

Though your hand runs softly along his back, it’s a pointed look you offer in Naomi’s direction. “Yes, I can see that.”

Naomi grins innocently, happy to have made Lewis so ecstatic with something as simple as chocolate biscuits. And it’s really not fair that she’s pegged you both so easily, plying you on frequent occasion with sweets.

“You are _not_ to open them before we’ve had supper, Lewis,” you tell him, finally looking away from Naomi and her cheeky smirk to your son who’s struggling to open the blue wrapping.

“ _Please_ , mum? Just one?”

“Yeah, come on, just _one_ ,” Naomi joins in, standing in front of you now where Lewis has moved aside to fiddle the packaging of his biscuits.

“You’re not helping, you know,” you say to her, failing to relay any real exasperation since you can’t _at all_ kerb your smile.

So of course she just laughs, wrapping her arms around your waist and staggering her feet between your own.

“We used to live on biscuits, _you know_.”

“Fine,” you finally concede, obviously outnumbered. And then tell Lewis, “You may have _one_ , and then we’re sitting down for supper. Got it?”

“Yes!” Lewis pumps his tiny fist into the air, stretching the word out like a long, hissing sound.

“And what have you got to say to Naomi?”

He collides into Naomi’s leg then, wrapping his arms around her thigh, and her hand falls to his back. “Fanks, Nomi! Fanks!” He then disappears into the sitting room, calling out when he gets there, “Come see, Nomi – I made art!”

“Be right in,” she tells him, smiling down on you.

“It’s his favourite part of the day, you know,” you tell her, running your hands up her arms and back, coming to rest near her elbows. “You coming home.”

She leans into you just so, and it doesn’t make sense, how such simple contact could still take your breath after all this time, but you feel it catch just the same.  

“Yeah?” Her mouth hovers there just above your own, a tease of something you’ve spent the day craving, and you nod, dropping your eyes to her lips like reflex. “Well, it’s something we have in common then,” she says just before closing the gap and kissing you, soft and slow.  

**

Before the start of Lewis’ first term in primary school, and just after his fourth birthday, you plan a long weekend to see your parents.

And, seeing her in Bristol again after so much time – despite how much things have changed, despite how so very little is the same at all – makes your heart beat a bit faster. Makes your youth seem just out of reach. Seeing her eyes and her smile and her familiar gait as she moves about old haunts, against a backdrop that practically defines you, draws a very familiar smile to your face.  

Through some long-standing connections in academia, Rose secures Lewis entrance to a posh prep school in the area, nearly equal distance between your homes. Naomi rolls her eyes at the news, disgusted by the idea of Lewis being influenced by _‘narrow-minded classists’_ at such a young age. But on the day he’s fitted for his navy blue trousers and light grey jumper, she can’t help herself from snapping photos of Lewis scowling at all the pins in his clothes.

Your parents haven’t seen Lewis in ages, and the trips you have taken to see them over the past few years have been without Naomi, who quite skilfully excuses herself under the guise of a hectic work schedule.

She’s got an undeniable weakness, though, and celebrating Lewis’ birthday – whether it’s in your mum’s kitchen or at the ninth circle of hell [though Naomi might argue they’re one in the same] – is something to which she cannot say no.

On the train, you drink a glass of wine – allowing Naomi a second glass when she ghosts over at the mention of a ‘special cake’ Jenna has baked for the occasion.

“Take small bites,” she warns a wide-eyed Lewis just before suffering a solid _thwap_ of your hand against her knee.

“Why?” Lewis asks.

“Just because it looks like cake, doesn’t mean it’ll _taste_ like cake, ya get me?”

Lewis swallows hard and nods gravely, his eyes never leaving Naomi’s.

“Stop it,” you chide. “Or I’m revoking your drinking privileges.”

Lewis sits across from you both, his own seats cluttered with books and papers and crayons. He leans forward on the small table between you, his elbows sliding along its surface.

“What are you drinking, Nomi?”

Naomi exhales, lifting the glass and taking another long sip. “Liquid courage, mate.”

“Can I have some?” Lewis asks excitedly.

“No,” you quickly answer. “Drink your juice if you’re thirsty. Naomi’s just having a laugh, aren’t you?”

She looks to you unhappily, pursing her lips to keep from saying what you know will be another disparaging remark about your mum. And with a sigh, looks back to Lewis.

“That’s right – I’m a barrel of laughs, Lewis, didn’t you know?”

He smiles broadly, nodding his head with confidence, and then looks to you. “Mum, Nomi’s funny, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea,” you tell him as your hand slips back onto her thigh, waiting for hers to cover it, which it does.

**

The cab stops outside your parents’ house, and Naomi just stares up at it from behind the window of the cab’s backseat, as if the smudged glass is what will protect her from what lies inside. You reach along the back of the headrests and tangle your fingers into her loose hair as she releases a long breath she’s likely been holding since Temple Meads.

“Christ, this is going to be a long, fucking holiday.”

“Hey – _language_.”

She turns away from the window and looks to Lewis, who’s sat between you, watching her intently.

“Lewis, you’re not going to repeat any of Naomi’s naughty words while we’re here, are you, mate?”

Lewis rattles his head from side to side emphatically, and Naomi grins proudly. You should be scolding at least _one_ of them, but as soon as Naomi unlatches Lewis’ seatbelt, he crawls into her lap, fiddling a charm dangling from her gold necklace, like he was almost meant to fit there.

So you stop short of saying anything by pinching your lips together, and instead her name comes out like a sigh. “Naomi—“

“I know, I’m sorry.” She closes her eyes, wrapping her arms around Lewis, and his head falls against her chest. “I’ll try, I really will. It’s just being here, you know?” Her head lolls towards you and she opens her eyes, a desperate kind of blue cutting straight through you. “Outside this house – it’s like I’m a teenager again, full of useless rebellion and uncontrollable vulgarity.”

“It’s going to be fine,” you tell her, reaching for her hand while the driver runs your card. “And, you weren’t completely useless at sixteen, you know. I sort of fancied some of that rebellious nature.” The driver hands back your card and exits the car to remove your things from the boot. You lean in then, reaching across the seat to kiss a still frowning Naomi, and then add with a smirk, “And, your vulgarity for that matter.”

“Oh, don’t get cheeky with me now, Emily Fitch,” she warns once you’ve pulled away just so. “Not when we’re about to spend the next 72 hours within the confines of _that_ house.”

With a quick kiss to her temple, you wink and open your door. “Never stopped us before, did it?”

**

Katie greets you at the door with high-pitched squeals and a bone-crushing hug, followed by your dad, whose wide grin and bright eyes have only warmed over time. Your mum appears next, her movements cautious and rigid as ever, and you almost hold your breath out of habit. Though, she’s smiling as she slowly approaches. Smiling at all _three_ of you.

Naomi’s carried Lewis from the taxi to keep his trainers and pant legs from getting soggy in the afternoon rain showers, and strategically avoids hugs from your family in the process. 

“Great to see you girls,” your dad beams, reaching a hand to cup Naomi’s elbow just as your mum releases you from a stilted embrace.

“You too, Rob,” Naomi says, offering him a smile you know is genuine. The kind she’s always reserved for your dad, and you relax a bit at their exchange.

“And you too, little man. You’ve gone and grown twice as big!” Your dad puts a hand to Lewis’ back, giving it a few, quick pats.

“Yes, I hardly recognised you, Lewis,” your mum says, wringing her hands with a tea towel.

He’s propped on Naomi’s hip, his arms wrapped around her neck and his head buried somewhere beneath her dark auburn hair.

“Lewis, you say hi to your gran and granddad,” you insist. “You’ve not seen them in ages!”

His quiet, ‘ _Hello’_ is muffled into Naomi’s shoulder, who merely shrugs and looks to you.

“Feeling a bit shy, are we?” she asks him, and Lewis nods, keeping his face mostly hidden.

“Yeah, well, don’t think you can use my nephew as a barrier for family affection. Get over here, you twat.” Katie barges in front of both your doting parents, forcing Naomi into an abrasive Fitch hug with Lewis sandwiched awkwardly in-between.

“Cheers, Katie. Always a pleasure,” Naomi deadpans, eyeing you warily over the top of Katie’s head. “And thanks for having us, Jenna,” she says once released from Katie’s grasp. And then offers, “I can assure you Lewis will be more appreciative in a little while.”

“Of course. Anytime,” your mum answers. And then smiles brightly, undeniably, while looking directly at Naomi.

Katie catches your eye then, and it’s like seeing a reflection – knowing your face mirrors hers exactly: shocked expression and smirking mouth.

In the kitchen, Naomi having taken Lewis to sit with your dad in the lounge to talk about how James is doing in University, or the latest football match, or London life, or whatever it is they get on so well about, you and Katie take turns nicking the walnuts off a dessert your mum’s prepared while she busies herself with making tea.

You notice your mum’s gone quiet while pottering about the kitchen. The way she’s not made any critical remarks on the length of your hair, or your choice of clothing, or the fact that it’s raining buckets on the day of a barbeque she’s no doubt spent two weeks planning.

So you nudge Katie with your elbow, and she pauses with a walnut halfway to her open mouth as you nod your head in your mum’s direction, shrugging your shoulders. Katie doesn’t even have to turn around to see what you’re implying, just rolls her eyes and mouths, _‘Lewis.’_

She then says, “We should open some wine, yeah mum?”

“Oh, sure, Katie. It’s in the fridge.”

With Katie on task, you take another look at your mum before your eyes drift towards the door to the sitting room.

“Hey, mum,” you start, sitting down at the table while Katie goes to fetch a bottle and some glasses. “I wouldn’t take offense to Lewis’s behaviour, you know. He’ll warm up soon enough.”

“Of course he will, dear,” she answers, Katie smirking and rolling her eyes again from somewhere over your mum’s shoulder.

“It’s just,” you press on, even though your mum’s not paused long enough to give you any sort of eye contact. “He’s been in a fairly _intense_ infatuation phase as of late, when it comes to Naomi.” 

Katie’s laugh is quick and loud and sharp, followed by the popping of a wine cork. “Oh, so he _is_ your son then?”

“Oh, Katie, really,” your mum sighs, and it’s like a return to this familiar dynamic you’d not ever known you could miss.

Your eyes narrow as you flip her off, your grinning twin, but you’re smiling in turn as you accept a glass from her. “Tosser.”

She takes a long sip and licks her lips. “Lezzah.”

It’s an exchange so dated, so empty of any real spite, you can’t hold in your laughter for long. And it spills out into the kitchen with Katie joining in seconds later, clinking her glass to yours and sitting down across from you with a long, contented sigh.   

**

Later that evening, you’re tucking Lewis into James’ old bed when he looks up at you with a frown. You’re already dressed for an evening out, Katie and Naomi waiting downstairs while you say goodnight to Lewis, and he worries the hem of your skirt between his fingers.  

“Mum?”

“What is it, love?” you ask, smoothing your thumb over the creases on his forehead.

“Do you fink Nomi’s scared to sleep in Gran’s house?”

“Of course not – why would you think that?”

“Because Auntie Katie told her if she planned on sharing your old room, she’d better sleep with one eye open!” Lewis squints, though both eyes are closed when he says, “Like _this_ , mum.”

You laugh, brushing the hair from his forehead and kissing his temple. “Naomi and your Aunt Katie have an _odd_ relationship. I don’t think you should pay much attention to anything they say to each other, alright?” Lewis nods as a yawn escapes him. “Off to sleep you go, and I’ll see you in the morning. I love you, you know.”

“I know. I love you,” he says. One more kiss to each cheek then you’ve got to go, since Katie’s already threatened to leave without you and is just drunk enough to follow-through. Lewis stops you though, just as you’re standing to leave. “Mum?”

“Hmm?”

“I love Nomi, too.”

Sitting down beside him again, you rest your hand atop the blankets and rub his stomach. “I know you do.”

“Tell her, will you? In case she forgets,” he says, yawning again.

You smile down on him and nod just once. “Yeah, I’ll tell her. But, Lewis, when someone loves her like you do, it’s something Naomi _never_ forgets. Alright?”

“Alright,” he answers, his eyes drooping and his small mouth barely moving.

At the door, you watch him for several long seconds before latching it closed with a soft click.

**

It’s easy to feel seventeen again when the pubs haven’t really changed, when Naomi is wearing her happy, drunken smile that makes her _look_ half her age, and when your sister is unapologetically on the pull.

It’s easy to feel seventeen when at half one, you’re all pissed and struggling to find the key to your dad’s drinks cabinet [that’s been locked since you were children even though it can easily be picked with a hairpin or once, miraculously, with a cocktail straw] without waking your parents.

Or when, an hour later, you’re all in the back garden trying to reign in your laughter – something even a sober Katie was never very skilled in doing – while you and Naomi share a pack of cigarettes and a patio chair, and Katie does an animated retell of the time you walked in to find her shagging Freddie Mclair.

You _don’t_ feel especially youthful, and actually about as far away from seventeen as you’ve ever felt, the following morning, when it can’t be later than six, and Lewis has already leapt into bed full of excitement.

“Is Nomi sick?” he asks when she groans and covers her head with a pillow.

“Yes, I think we’re both feeling a bit ill this morning,” you tell him, covering your own eyes with your hands and taking several deep breaths to ward off the pulsing behind your skull.

He lies down between you, a squirming mass of energy, pulling back the corner of the pillow under which Naomi is hiding, and giggles, “She looks a bit shit.”

“Lewis, I thought we agreed to keep from using those words while at your Gran’s,” you say, pulling back on his shoulder so he’s laid flat on his back looking up at you with bright, innocent eyes.

“But she does, mum!” And then, stealing another peak beneath the pillow he whispers to you, “Smells a bit shit, too.”

“ _Lewis!_ ” 

“Sorry.” He covers his mouth with both hands, a bit too late, and then buries into your side so sweetly, you can only wrap an arm around him in response.

The blankets and pillows don’t do much to muffle it, but you hope at least _Lewis_ hasn’t noticed Naomi’s uncontrolled laughter because it’s not easy scolding him when you know how much she’s enjoying herself.

In retaliation then, you tell Lewis that Naomi would love nothing more than to take him downstairs for breakfast.

“She talked about it all night – how in the morning she was going to wake up very early and fetch you for breakfast because she missed you so much.”

Which is true, and makes Lewis’ face light up.

“ _And,_ how she wanted to make us pancakes,” you add a beat later.

Which isn’t true at all, but it’s what you want, feeling rubbish and more hungover than you’ve been in ages. And Naomi emerges from hiding and scowls unhappily in response.

“I want pancakes for brekkie, Nomi!” Lewis bounces around on the mattress, finally landing on top of Naomi, and her scowl melts away instantly when his nose touches hers.

“Alright, alright,” she concedes, and scoops up your son from the bed once she’s stood beside it. “You owe me,” she then says to you with a threatening arc to her brow.

You roll onto your side, bunching the duvet under your chin, and bite your bottom lip. Naomi’s eyes only narrow in response, her lips pressed together suppressing a smirk. A silent stand-off, well-practiced. And one that you will likely _always_ win.

“What does mum owe you?” your son asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “A tenner?”

Naomi laughs and finally looks away, back to Lewis, hoisting him onto her hip and running a hand through her dishevelled hair.

Then says, “A _lot_ more than that, mate.” And heads for the door.

**

It’s smaller than you remember. And it has a smell, distinctly algae, that’s never been a part of your recall. But it _is_ lovely, and that much hasn’t changed at all.

“Can I jump in?” Lewis asks.

“No,” you answer in unison, Naomi even reaching out for his shoulder to pull him back from the water’s edge.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s _very_ cold,” you tell him.

“You’ve gone in?” He looks up at you, incredulously, and you bite back a smile that your son has already created this image of you – of who you are, or maybe even who you were – that’s probably horribly inaccurate.

So, you tell him. “I was _pushed_ in, actually.”

“Who pushed you, mum?” Lewis asks, entirely rapt now in this story he’s never before heard.

“I did not _push_ you, Emily,” Naomi defends mildly, still holding onto Lewis with one hand but looking out over the water as she speaks.

“You most certainly did!” You turn towards her, arms crossed and eyes wide.

Lewis cranes his neck to look up at her. “Nomi, _you_ pushed mum into a lake?”

She just laughs then before turning towards you with a challenging expression, forcing you to swallow just to maintain eye contact.

“I think jumping in was your intention all along, wasn’t it?”

In a blink, you’re back there again.

Awkwardly sixteen and shitting yourself with nerves that probably showed in every movement. Getting undressed in front of her, and truly alone for the first time ever – pretending you had any, fucking clue what you were doing. Knowing that this was different from everything that came before.

That things would _always_ be different now – just by the way she watched you, and the way she let you watch her. She did push you that day, and you let her.

You can’t help smiling then, your admission one she already knows. “Yeah, it was.”

**

On the drive home, having borrowed Katie’s car for the day, you stop off at Shakeaway for milkshakes, swearing Lewis to absolute secrecy because they’re sure to spoil your supper. And a part of you still fears that particular shade of wrath from you mum – the one that’s directly associated with not eating the food she’s so carefully prepared.

After a mostly successful family dinner – Lewis’ rather audible distaste for your mum’s tofu pâté notwithstanding – you take a walk, just the three of you, at Naomi’s suggestion.

“Had enough of the Fitch family dynamic for one evening?” you ask, slipping your hand into hers as you round the corner.

She gives you a sidelong glance and squeezes your fingers together. “That obvious?”

Lewis skips on ahead of you both, distracted by puddles of rainwater, birds on the electrical wires, blades of grass.

“Actually,” she continues lightly, “I’ve calculated my tolerance to be just around three hours, so if I’m able to break this entire trip into 180-minute increments, I just might survive it.”

You laugh at that, pulling your joined hands toward your mouth to kiss her knuckles. She’s been a proper saint the entire weekend, and you fully plan to reward her efforts the very second you’re back in London.

You’ve figured the walk to be aimless, just a chance for fresh air, but it’s not long before your senses pique and you start to recognise your surroundings, realising Naomi’s had a plan all along.

“Feeling nostalgic, are we?”

When you look up at her, both paused near the flower beds, she’s staring up at the large front windows.

Her brow furrows just slightly. “Feeling exhausted, actually. Did we really used to walk this far on a regular basis?”

Lewis is jumping under the tree in the front, attempting to reach the lowest branch which is too far above his head.

“Sometimes it was more of a stumble,” you tell her, squinting from the late afternoon sun as it sets behind her.

“Mmm,” she hums, kissing your forehead before looking over to Lewis. “Do you know where we are, mate?”

“No,” he answers, pausing his efforts for a moment to look up at the yellow house. His face then brightens, and he asks, “Is it our new house?”

Naomi laughs and walks over to him, but you stand motionless, some odd sensation fluttering at the pit of your stomach. So you place a hand there until it settles.

“It’s not a new house at all, is it? This is where I grew up.” She squats down to his level, placing a hand at his back. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah – it’s brilliant!”

Naomi laughs again and stands, taking Lewis’ hand in hers. “Yeah, it sort of is, isn’t it?” She stares at the house for a few more beats, your eyes trained on her.

You’re a bit lost, desperately wondering where her thoughts have gone. What she might be thinking. You’d like to ask, and considering doing just that when she looks away, her gaze falling to Lewis as she rattles their joined hands.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s have a walk around.”

Something in your brain snaps when you register what Naomi’s said, and you shake your head, calling out to them. “Naomi – you can’t just – it’s _trespassing_.”

She pauses, already halfway up the walk and bobs her head towards a sign you’d not seen. “Relax, it’s up for sale, isn’t it?”

A bright red-and-white real estate sign stands to your left, and you have to blink a few times when the fluttering deep in your stomach resumes. It’s not until you hear Naomi ask, _‘Coming then?’_ that you turn back to face them.

“Yeah – of course,” you say, forcing a smile, and fall in line behind the pair of them.

You cast one last look over your shoulder at the sign, it’s bright white block lettering harshly reflecting the setting sun. And then your eyes fall to the front porch as you walk past toward the back garden.

In another life, you’re stood there with Naomi: smoking fags, holding hands, having rows, saying goodnight. Always kissing desperately against a yellow front door that’s since been painted blue.

“Come on,” Naomi says to Lewis, lifting him over the small back gate before hopping over it herself. “I’ll show you where your crazy Nan Gina used to grow marijuana plants.”

You pause by the gate to watch them, one leg swung over the low, stone wall, surveying the back garden. All the surroundings that have become other things, that have belonged to other people. That could never, not in a hundred years, look unfamiliar. When Naomi turns her head to you with a wink and a smile, you bite your lip and jump in.


End file.
